Close menu

Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 3,25 Dec 2025,59 mins

SeriesA Georgian Christmas

Family Entertainments

Composer of the Week

Available for 11 days

Donald Macleod visits the home of Jane Austen with historian Amanda Vickery to discover some of the seasonal customs and Christmas music of late-Georgian Britain. Christmas has always been a time to spend at home, with friends and family. Donald and Amanda look at how households amused themselves during the festive holidays, with music making and traditional party games. Jarman: There were shepherds abiding Psalmody The Parley of Instruments, conducted by Peter Holman John Wainwright: Christians, awake, salute the happy morn Luke Green, organ Psalmody, conducted by Peter Holman Pleyel: Symphony No.12 in E flat, III. Menuetto & IV. Rondo NTO Tonkünstlerorchester, conducted by Carlos Kalmar Wesley: Rondo on God Rest You Merry Gentlemen Timothy Roberts, fortepiano Handel: Messiah (excerpt from part II) Elizabeth Watts, soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers, alto Mark Le Brocq, tenor James Oldfield, bass Huddersfield Choral Society Northern Sinfonia, conducted by Jane Glover

Programme Website
More episodes

Tracklist

  1. Track
    Artist
  2. 1.
    There were Shepherds abiding in the fields
    There were Shepherds abiding in the fields
    Thomas Jarman
  3. 2.
    Christians, Awake!
    Christians, Awake!
    John Wainwright
  4. 3.
    Symphony in E flat major, B134 (3rd & 4th mvts)
    Symphony in E flat major, B134 (3rd & 4th mvts)
    Ignace Joseph Pleyel
  5. 4.
    Rondo on God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
    Rondo on God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
    Samuel Wesley
  6. 5.
    Messiah, Part 2 (excerpts)
    Messiah, Part 2 (excerpts)
    George Frideric Handel